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I met up with AFDusmc and TheOtherIndian at the trailhead for a climb of C-Couloir on Missouri Mountain early on Saturday morning. I'm not sure why these hours even exist, everyone should be still sleeping. No matter we were walking up the trail at 5:00am in a rather warm morning, no hard freeze overnight.
It was a long slog up the switchbacks, I was not keeping up with the pace and I appreciate the patience of the guys getting out of the forest. We broke treeline as the sun was starting to fill the upper valley walls, a beautiful morning with just a slight breeze that grew only when we stopped to rest.
There isn't much to the route until you start the entrance to the couloir. We took a break about 150 yards from the climb proper, and that was only 250 postholes away. We swapped out making steps, but thanks to AFDusmc for carrying the load on breaking trail. Here are the guys starting towards the climb.
The snow was very soft, we sank often from ankle to waist, it took a long time to reach the peak, 6 hours from the parking lot. I wasn't expecting the climb to take that long, but it did.
A couple shots from the climb.
It took about 2 hours to complete the last 1,000 feet of climbing. The conditions varied from deep soft snow to rock scree, a bit sketchy in spots but nothing terrible. I was relieved to reach the top, we took a couple minutes to rest. A few photos, a bite to eat, and then we were ready to go. We discussed the options down, the ridge and summer route looked like a long rough task. We decided to descend the same gulley we climbed, only the top portion was a test, the rest was a sitting glissade.
Summit photo with partners in the glasses.
The snow was stable enough to glissade, though we did cut a deep trench. Sorry to mark the hill, but it was the best route down.
A great day in the mountains, good weather and partners. I wouldn't say the snow conditions were ideal, but we enjoyed ourselves. Thanks for the help on the climb guys.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
There were a couple hard spots up high, but not many. I thought the crampons helped where snow met the scree, particularly heading down the upper 100'. The snow was soft, we did wear crampons for the climb, probably not necessary but handy at times.
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